snousle

En route back from Williams, I stopped by at Les Jardins du Bateau, a tiny organic farm just across the highway from Saratoga Springs. This was my excuse for making it all a "business trip". The Jardin is a U-pick-by-appointment establishment, they have no Web presence, and their address is not on the map. You just have to know - I met them at the Blue Lakes roundtable. Despite their complete obscurity and lack of marketing, they seem to get a lot of clients.

I had outfitted Sharkey for the occasion:

This is my new supply transport system. The top crate "breathes" so I can pack freshly picked produce in wet towels and have it still be cool and fresh when I get home. Seriously, I swaddle and coddle vegetables like they were the baby jesus, and it appears that this method works quite well. If the maintenance on the bike didn't cost more than gas it might even be a sensible approach. But for now, image is everything: nobody forgets the caterer on the weird bike.

On arrival, the owner greeted me at the locked gate. I was decisively out-vehicled, and cowered in the face of the overwhelming coolness of his ride:

Yeap, it's an old Mercedes, I think he said it was a model from 1929. (Might have misheard that, I know hardly anything about cars.) Just for toolin' around the ranch, I guess.

Anyway, this is Troll, the owner. What a spectacularly hard-working guy. A biker, too, with a nice custom Harley I didn't get a picture of.

Also not pictured: the Bateau itself, an old derelict yacht that they floated in during a flood and placed prominently in the garden. I guess it connects to Clear Lake when the water is really high. He said nobody wanted the property because of the flood problems, but he just lives with it.

I seem to fit in well in this area - like him, and so many people I meet, I live a life low on expenses, high on fabulousness, long on intellectual interest, and entirely devoted to a difficult and unprofitable business that nobody pays any attention to. LOL. Seriously, I don't know how this can possibly work, but so many people are doing it that there must be something going for it.

I bought a few pounds of gnarly little carrots for ten bucks. Not only do they look cool, but they're delicious. Very intense flavor. A few white roots landed in the pile, which Troll snatched up and tossed aside. I asked why, and he said they were "hemlock". And on looking this up on Wikipedia I see it does indeed look just like the poisonous plant of the same name. And this completely freaks me out, because I had assumed they were simply white carrots... EEEEEK!!!! Seriously, if he hadn't told me this would have ended up in somebody's dinner, I had NO FUCKING CLUE. Yeah, this organic gardening is really great for your health! Shit!

Great ride, beautiful day, all that stuff. I got orders for TWO whole box dinners this week, but I am obligated to pick up ten pounds of pork tenderloin this afternoon. Sigh... I sure hope it's all in cryovac or I'm gonna have pig coming out of my ears.